Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Kudos to VFR on Israel

I am grateful for the coverage at Auster's View from the Right of issues related to Israel, most recently, of course, the pro-Hamas flotilla incident. Auster is the only high-profile conservative blogger I know who is not simply a predictable mainstream conservative (he's interestingly quirky and trad-conservative) but who is staunchly and loudly pro-Israel. And being loud is good in this area, I would add. I can't think of the last time--maybe there hasn't been a time--when Auster said something about Israel that I disagreed with, right up to and including his repeated comments that in reality Israel is far too liberal and near-suicidal, doesn't present its own case forcefully enough, makes foolish concessions to its enemies, etc.

It depresses me when I give myself time to think about it to realize how many people who identify themselves as conservative are anti-Israel and even accept the ridiculous nonsense about the "peace activists" in the "aid flotilla." Here, too, Auster calls a spade a grub hoe and discusses directly the disgusting coverage at TAC and Alternative Right. For some reason I find this refreshing and a kind of relief, perhaps because it's the kind of thing that I wish I had the time, emotional energy, and courage to do myself.

Not being a Bob Dylan fan, I had never before read the words to "Neighborhood Bully" before seeing them the other day at VFR. They really are astonishing.

10 comments:

Bruce Graeme, this is just one a small warning: On my personal blog, I'm a tyrannical dictator, and silly trolls who liken soldiers firing in self-defense against people trying to bludgeon them to death and throw them overboard to Nazis are likely to find their comments simply...not there.

I just want to echo your sentiments and publically say that though I have clashed with Larry in the past, he has just been on fire lately demonstrating just how UN-conservative the folks at TAC and "Alternative Right" are by linking to their friends on the left and attacking Israel as if they were crazed Islamists or radical leftists.

Finally, with respect to Israel doing a better job of winning the "PR" battle, I think this post has some good ideas:

Good article, Jeff. And of course he's right. I can't imagine how depressing it must be to be Israeli and see your government going through this pattern again and again.

And here's something really weird: The Israeli government is willing to do _crazy_ things to try to retain American and world approval: witness the de facto building freeze in the east half of their *own capital*. Insanity. And it won't get them any brownie points with the Israel-haters, either.

But releasing that video sooner would have been _easy_ to do. It might have made little difference in some minds, but some difference in others. It was eminently worth doing, yet they delayed.

Why do they do the crazy things that they shouldn't be doing to try to gain approval but not the easy, obvious things? It's beyond strange.

I've gotta note, though, the following depressing fact: Despite the fact that the facts are now out there, the top headline on Yahoo news for most of the day (all of the day?) on my computer has been "Turkey Honors Slain Activists." Sometimes it included the phrase "Including U.S. Teen."

I mean, sick. The MSM is just sick unto death. Even now that they _know_ the truth, they're still treating these people like heroes. And before that was something like, "Turkey Welcomes Activists Home."

I hope it goes without saying I'm with you on this. A larger concern occurred to me. If in time war should break out between Israel and Turkey (which seems headed in a bad direction), we have in office probably the worst possible administration in our history to deal with it.

I knew you were, Bill. :-) Yes, isn't it something that this is coming from "moderate" Turkey? I hear Erdogen said the other day that Hamas is not a terrorist group. Great. I've always said it's only a matter of time before Hamas goes the way of the PLO and gets treated as a "political party" by the MSM and the world at large. Without ever, of course, changing its goal of wiping Israel off the map. (The PLO hasn't changed, either. Makes one feel old when one can remember the days when _everyone_ called the PLO a terrorist organization instead of treating it as the ruling "moderate" political party of a fictitious sovereign state called "Palestine.")

Anyway, it's odd: I had a conversation on Facebook about six months ago with a friend who was complaining about how militantly secular the government of Turkey is and who was opining that it would be an improvement for Turkey to become more Islamist _if_ this would mean greater religious freedom for Christians. (As if.) It was a very odd conversation. I wonder if he still thinks that way now but would rather not ask.

Exactly. His idea seemed to be that at present Turkey acts more like an anti-religious Communist state in its treatment of religion and that its becoming more Islamist could only improve matters. Sounds to me like exchanging one problem for another. It's hard to see why the Muslims should be expected to grant religious freedom to Christians rather than just keeping in place the suppression of Christians and giving more influence to Islam. I suppose it's possible that some gesture might be made to make Christians think they were getting something out of it. He was particularly exercised about the closing of a particular Greek Orthodox seminary that I gather is a cause celebre. But does he really think that even if the Muslims came to be in charge and opened up that particular seminary, the whole situation would ultimately be to the good of Christians?